A startup Israeli art gallery has launched its first exhibition, Stolen Arab Art, in which works by prominent contemporary Arab artists are being purposefully shown without their consent or knowledge.

“We are showing the works in the exhibition in Israel without the artists’ knowledge or consent, acutely aware of this act of expropriation,” the 1:1 Centre for Art and Politics, a gallery in southern Tel Aviv, said in the exhibition’s statement.

“By delineating these political and geographic boundaries we wish to call attention to Israel’s exclusion from the Middle East family,” the gallery claimed.

A selection of four video artworks by six acclaimed artists from the Arab world are being shown in the exhibition, without crediting the artists or publishing their names.

Wael Shawky, an Egyptian artist whose artwork was shown in the exhibition, was livid.